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6 Life Changing Things You Can do for the Price of an Average U.S. Wedding

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I’m a big fan of marriage. It has been very good to me. And despite the bad rap it usually gets in our popular culture, marriage really is a terrific arrangement – especially, but not surprisingly, for men. Married men earn 20% more than their single counterparts, report higher levels of happiness, and live longer. If men could get those results in a pill it would outsell Viagara ten to one.

What isn’t so beneficial is the ridiculously elaborate ceremony our culture demands to commemorate the occasion. Reuters recently reported that the average U.S. wedding now costs a staggering $27,021. A wedding in high-price Manhattan averages $65,824.

You’d think young couples would have far better uses for $27,000 than a single day’s celebration. In case they need help breaking with tradition, here are six life-changing suggestions for how to use that cash.

1) Travel around the world for an entire year

Travel doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, a year traveling the world can cost far less than a year of staying at home.

Warren and Betsy Talbot of Married with Luggage, for example, set out in 2010 with a $100 per day budget. After traveling through South America, spending five months in high-cost Europe, and many more months in Asia, they’ve shattered their budget. And by shatter, I mean they spent about 40% less than they originally planned.

Their first full year of travel cost them $24,140, about three thousand less than the typical U.S. wedding.

Rather than a fancy dress, flowers and a D.J., a young couple could experience the world in a way few people do. Along the way, they’ll accumulate the kinds of memories and experiences that bind couples together and make their relationships stronger. They’ll discover things about each other that takes others decades to learn.

It’s hard to imagine a better way than this to begin the life-long journey called marriage.

2) Fund a $500,000 retirement portfolio

Only 40% of American workers have accumulated savings of at least $25,000. Simply banking the cost of a wedding makes you wealthier than 60% of the U.S. population. Left untouched and invested in a diversified portfolio of mutual funds, that balance can reasonably grow into a $500,000 retirement portfolio by the time these newlyweds reach age 65.

Considering that money troubles are the number one source of conflict among couples, that financial cushion may go a long way toward insuring the marriage stays happy long after the “big” day.

3) Buy a house

But we at EverywhereOnce don’t strive for average. If we did, we’d have spent a fortune on our wedding and be struggling to make mortgage payments on the largest house we could afford. Instead, we prefer the less conventional approach of Billy and Akaisha of Retire Early Lifestyle who retired at the age of 38 and have spent the past two decades traveling the world.

They solved the problem of high overhead U.S. housing with what they call a “low maintenance, high amenity, humble abode.” Their fully paid for pad in an active adult resort community cost them tens of thousands instead of hundreds. Their low cost, secure community allows them to travel several months each year while also keeping an affordable home base here in the states.

Of course their manufactured housing doesn’t have the same cache most Americans expect from their homes. But once you start viewing housing as mere shelter instead of a status symbol, it becomes obvious that paying more doesn’t really get you more. In fact, we’re far happier living in a 300 sqf motor home than we would be in a house ten times its size.

4) Pay for 4 years of in-state college tuition

According to the College Board, average annual in-state tuition for a bachelor’s degree at public universities was $6,604 in 2011, or $26,416 for the four year program.

While it’s true that a college degree no longer guarantees you a job, college grads still earn nearly 70% more on average than someone with only a high school diploma. Even in a tough economy that has led many to question the value of higher education, the unemployment rate for those with at least a bachelor’s degree is half that of those who just graduated high school (4.0% versus 7.9%).

You won’t get that kind of return on investment paying for a wedding hall.

5) Be the boss

Why work for the man when you can work for yourself?

Starting a business can be expensive. Not only do you need to pay for supplies but, if you’re working at it full time, you need to feed yourself during the initial stages. $27,000 buys a lot of Ramen noodles to keep you going during those early lean years.

One way to jumpstart your entrepreneurial ambitions is with a franchise. Franchises give you a ready-made blueprint for an already successful business, but these too have upfront costs. This list of 10 low-cost franchises has many that come in below our wedding budget.

6) Transform a community

About half the world’s population lives on an annual income of $1,250 or less. For the price of one U.S. wedding, you could support a median income individual for 22 years.

There are dozens of worthy organizations that would make better use of our wedding dollars than do caterers and florists. One we’ve highlighted in the past is Heifer International. They provide livestock and training to some of the world’s neediest communities. They then multiply each donation’s impact by requiring recipients to gift some of the livestock offspring to other eligible families. They’re an organization that, we believe, is making meaningful differences in people’s lives.

“A good dairy cow can produce four gallons of milk a day – enough for a family to drink and share with neighbors. Milk protein transforms sick, malnourished children into healthy boys and girls. The sale of surplus milk earns money for school fees, medicine, clothing and home improvements.

Better still, every gift multiplies, as the animal’s first offspring is passed on to another family – then they also agree to pass on an animal, and so on.

And because a healthy cow can produce a calf every year, every gift will be passed on and eventually help an entire community move from poverty to self reliance. Now that’s a gift worth giving!”

For $25K Heifer can deliver the “Gift of Transformation;” basically an entire farm with the training needed to maintain and grow it. For the cost of their wedding, newlyweds can feed and promote the economic development of an entire community for generations to come. That is a truly awe inspiring thing. And a pretty terrific wedding present, too.

64 Comments on “6 Life Changing Things You Can do for the Price of an Average U.S. Wedding”

I’ve never understood why people spend so much on one day, when you need to be financially secure for the rest of your life! My recent wedding cost just under £2k, as my husband’s best man and his stepfather both offered their cars to ferry people around. My ring cost the most money at £450, and my husband’s mother arranged the very simple buffet reception. Some truly lovely photographs were taken by friends and family, as we didn’t see the need for a photographer and I hate posing for photos (the ones we like best are the ones in which I didn’t know the picture was being taken).

We did ours for about the same price (adjusted for 17 year’s worth of inflation). Spent more on the Honeymoon than the wedding – about which, I’m still pleased. If we had to do it over again we’d just elope and maybe buy drinks in a really cool destination for anyone who wanted to meet us there.

I am in total agreement with this. I have no idea why people spend so much on wedding to then struggle through a moneyless marriage. I mean hey, if you have multiple zeros following a big number in your bank account then by all means, but to spend so much on one day and then be at a loss about what you will do financially afterwards…Crazy!

I obviously agree, although I do think I understand the reasons. The biggie, I think, is status. A big wedding is a chance to show off and impress your friends and family, or to at least keep up with what others in your circle are doing. It’s like buying a big house. I also think many of us do what is expected of us. We’re told and shown from very early on that elaborate weddings are just what is done. I know we had tremendous pushback from some quarters because we didn’t throw an expensive party for everyone to attend. Breaking with tradition and custom is hard. Given a choice, most of us choose the path of least resistance (as in, we have to invite 250 people or my third cousin’s best friend will be insulted.)

I wish this post was written last year. We tried to tell our daughter these things, well, most of them, and of course she wouldn’t listen to us. She might have paid attention if we had been able to show her we weren’t just making it up. : )

At the risk of exposing my inner geek, your comment reminded me of a protest sign I saw recently that read “What do we want? Time Travel! When do we want it? It’s irrelevant!” That’s supposed to be funny, btw.

Ah, if we could go back and do things over again? I suspect your daughter will one day see your wisdom. If only we could all be a bit wiser, a bit earlier.

Hilarious. Yes, exactly. We did manage to reign her in a little. At first there were eight tables of eight that turned into ten tables…I don’t know why, some imaginary person was going to be offended I guess. We said no to the expensive chair rental of 80 cushioned chairs and opted for the cheap grey folding chairs. My husband was satisfied. But then our daughter decided the chairs just would not do. She spent $400 of her “own money” to dress them like tuxedos. KIDS!!!

What a great post! I think most people don’t think in these terms, and it’s an eye-opener. We have two young adult children, and I suspect there will be weddings in the next few years. I need to keep this around for reference!

I think you’re right that most people don’t think in these terms. I always see things in terms of trade offs. A dollar spent on something is a dollar I don’t have for something else. Time spent working for a dollar is time I can’t use in any other way. For me, the cost of something is the value of everything else I need to give up to get it.

But when you’re spending Mom and Dad’s money, then the value propostion is quite different. That is something I don’t address in the article, but maybe should have.

This is a really great post! I think it highlights the skewed values that many of us start of with when we get married. One day doesn’t determine the rest of your life, or the quality of your marriage. It is short sighted to overextend financially on a wedding and I would venture to say signals immaturity and ignorance about finances.

I agree completely about our often skewed values. We see it in lots of places and $27K weddings are just one example. To be clear, we’re not judging anyone else’s choices. If a big wedding makes someone truly happy, then go for it. But from my perspective, someone who spends that kind of cash on a single celebration gives up the right to complain about money troubles – basically for the rest of their lives.

Living by the social measure as I call it…it get’s more and more expensive every day simply because people are no longer thinking about what they want but about the things others will see. We measure our own “greatness” by the amount of astonished faces that turn up at the wedding. A bit of a media induced pressure, because media is not good with only medium weddings and shows, everything has to be top notch and for an average human being (American standard is way above the standard of the country i live in) the money you give out for the wedding, as you say Brian, and I totally agree with you, can be spent in many better and more useful ways. Yes I want a nice ceremony, but one that celebrates the marriage, not one that will amaze people by all the flashy and astonishing details, like 2 ton cake, or a 25 meters wedding limo or things like that…

I think you’ve diagnosed the phenomenon quite correctly. One theory on why maintaining appearances has gotten more expensive is because the rungs on our socio-economic ladder have moved farther apart in recent decades. The Jones’ lifestyle used to be within reasonable reach, but now it may not be even with the use of excessive borrowing.

It’s hard, but not impossible, to escape from this trap. The first step toward freedom, though, is to recognize that it is indeed a trap. We hope this article, along with our other writings, help to spread the word.

This is a fabulous article and I totally agree with you. We had a simple wedding and I always encourage young people to do the same. They get so much pressure from family and friends, it makes it hard not to just cave into it. We just held strong to our principles.

We got married in Vegas. No regrets! We simply wrote all of our dear friends and family and told them of our plans and invited them along (their expense)! Can you imagine how excited and surprised we were when 35 people showed up?! Everyone is constantly asking us to plan another trip. So many friendships were made along the way, I really think it made family gatherings between our families so much more easy!! Totally worry free and no where near the expenise of a traditional wedding! 🙂

Thanks for doing the “like” thing on my blog. I’ve got a few followers and happy to get all the likes I can manage.

I love this piece – being retired since ’08 we have used a 2nd home in Fla in a vacation home sharing service – This is an option for those long-married types who’ve been lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time re: real estate. Last year, Vacation Homes Unlimited helped us find a house swap – giving us three weeks in Paris (2nd Arr.) with no accommodation costs. Just and FYI for others.

The best of luck to you and Shannon as you do what so many young people can only dream of doing – living your dream-life. gwen

We thought about using house swaps as a way to stay in other cities. We’re no longer in a house, so that is not an option for us any more. It’s something we’ll definitely try if we ever settle down somewhere.

Like, like and LIKE! Many venues and merchants are to blame for this OTT expense too. I have a friend who rang a number of places to get quotes for their wedding reception venue, flowers, cars etc then rang back the next day to get a quote for exactly the same thing but said it was for an anniversary party. So many places/businesses gave her a cheaper quote when she didn’t say the “W” word. In the end, she made the decision to only hire/buy from businesses who gave her the same price both times – and it was a gorgeous, reasonably priced wedding.

I don’t imagine anywhere would admit it. I’m sure if she had challenged them they would have claimed she had given them slightly different specifications/number/something on the previous call, or that whoever she spoke to gave her the wrong figure.

Thanks for liking my photo I really like the way you think! Our wedding – a UK one – cost £3,000. We got our guests to bring and share for the meal, my dress cost £300, borrowed cars, had friends take the photos, and most of the other stuff was for drink, venue hire and a license oh and suit hire for the guys! We invited far more guests than we otherwise could and had an informal blast with loads of kids and babies running around (well not the babies!). It was a great day! And it wasn’t all that long ago:)

Very well put. I have always scratched my head when hearing about these elaborate weddings. We had exactly 6 people at our wedding, including ourselves. That was 33 years ago. I am wondering how many of the couples, who spent so much money, are still married.

fatty and i are planning on getting married in september……we are getting married in court …..weve already been living together for 8 years so it just a legal formality as far as we are concerned………then we are going camping and the reception will be a BBQ at the camping spot for a small family group……then our honeymoon will be spent alone hiking from the campsite………pointless spending millions of dollars on a silly formality whn all we really want to do is get out in the mountains in anycase……..

I think this post is a good read although the Heifer thing made me laugh a little because how on earth can people who are in poverty that can’t feed themselves afford to look after and feed a cow, including the fact they need to consume up to 50 gallons of water per day! Ridiculous

Hi Stefani,
I guess it would be ridiculous if Heifer were simply dropping cows on people from airplanes. But I’m not sure why anyone would assume that is what they’re doing.

1) A substantial portion of the world’s poorest people are subsistence farmers. Giving them better tools and resources to improve their yield is absolutely a way to help “people in poverty that (otherwise) can’t feed themselves.”
2) Not everyone gets a cow, or even an animal. Heifer also operates a seed bank and provides substantial training as part of every “gift.”
3) If you follow Betty’s blog (someone we’ve met in person and who is actually visiting a dozen Heifer projects first hand), you’ll see that each is tailored to the community in need. http://heifer12x12.com/ They’re not giving cows to people who can’t maintain them.

Okay, I wasn’t assuming the reason I wrote the comment was because I was enquiring and I guess it was a bit hasty but it just seems like for the cost of feeding the cow, surely they could just use the money to feed the people?

Hi Stefani,
The idea behind Heifer is more than just giving a one-time food handout, but instead giving people both the knowledge and resources to feed themselves perpetually and thrive economically too. Their aim is to develop herders/ranchers/farmers who are so productive that they more than feed themselves and have a surplus to sell. It’s the old parable of teaching a man to fish, writ large. We like that and think they do incredible work.

But whatever you think of Heifer, the larger point still stands. Heifer is just one possible example of how a charitable organization could transform people’s lives with the kind of cash that is routinely spent on a traditional U.S. wedding. The idea works just as well with any other reputable charity.

This is always an interesting argument – one especially relevant to myself as we just got married this last Saturday! I struggled with this many times throughout the last year. We are doing a little of both – we had a small wedding (53 people), and are backpacking Europe for 2 months for our honeymoon. I didn’t want to do away with a wedding all together, as I felt I would regret doing that in the long run. But I agree – it’s definitely become a huge industry and there is always some extra that you “need” to buy!

I absolutely agree with you! And I’m really excited to learn that traveling around the world can cost as low as $24k a year. Going around the world in budget has been in our conversations and will be a reality pretty soon. It’s inspiring to see how others manage to do it without breaking the bank. 🙂

Absolutely agree, not just for the money but I can’t stand formal weddings, and I don’t like sitting down.

The way we handled it was to get married on the cliffs over the water at sunrise (05:47) (in fact the 1st sunrise of the millennium 1/1/2000) and then have a simple
buffet breakfast at a beach-front hotel nearby. The wedding music was Harry Belafonte. We invited nobody we didn’t like.

Great post! As I’ve recently become engaged I’ve started thinking towards my wedding (I’ve never had a dream wedding planned from a young age like other girls!) and I really can’t fathom spending so much money on one single day of my life – my first thought was exactly the same as your first point. I also think the more expensive a wedding is surely the more stressful – there’s so much more pressure for everything to be perfect instead of focusing on it just being a fun celebration of two people joining together, which is what I think it should be!

I am happy you stumbled upon my blog so that I could be led to your blog and that I could read this post (and not only!)
I am an Estonian living in Greece and engaged to a Greek. I think the cost and size (guest-wise) of Greek and Cypriot weddings is something extraordinary. I am talking about a few hundred guest at the very modest and thousands in lavish Cypriot weddings. In a peculiar way though, at least prior to the suffocating crisis in Europe and especially Greece, the weddings actually raised money, as there were so many guests who all gave some money as a wedding gift and usually the amount covered at least the cost of feeding them at the reception.
Our wedding was called off because of a serious health issue of a family member and because of the whole situation, we were not in the mood of moving forward with the planning etc. We were supposed to have a “modest” 500-guest wedding in Crete.
And now I am having second thoughts and my ideal would be just us plus the very close family (only parents and brothers-sisters) and a really tiny wedding ceremony. The only thing I would like to spend more on is the photographer, in the end, it is the photos that remind you of the important day. But I can see that it is really hard to try to make a Greek to step out of tradition. We´ll see and I am hoping fro the best.
Thank you very much for the post and I think your blog and lifestyle is awesome!

Thanks for sharing. All I can say is “Wow. 500-1,000 guests!!” That is some wedding. Planning might be a headache but I like the idea of everyone giving enough to cover their cost. It reminds me of simpler family celebrations where everyone brings something to contribute to the party – a meal, deserts, drinks, etc. That, to me gets, at the heart of what a wedding should be – a celebration focused on the gathering of family and friends, rather than an elaborate display of personal wealth.

Appreciating the time and energy you put into your site and detailed
information you offer. It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same outdated rehashed information.
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[…] our favorite suggestion came from Brian and Shannon at Everywhere Once, who recently posted 6 Life Changing Things You Can do for the Price of an Average U.S. Wedding. They proposed the couple could take the $27,000 and Travel Around the World for an Entire Year. […]

[…] our favorite suggestion came from Brian and Shannon at Everywhere Once, who recently posted 6 Life Changing Things You Can do for the Price of an Average U.S. Wedding. They proposed the couple could take the $27,000 and Travel Around the World for an Entire Year. […]

[…] years ago we wrote about Six Life Changing Things You Can Do for the Price of an Average U.S. Wedding. It turns out that one thing a couple can do with the money they’d typically blow on an elaborate […]